Table 1.
Post COVID syndrome categories.
| Post COVID syndrome | Predominant clinical features | Remarks |
|---|---|---|
| Post COVID fatigue syndrome | Profound fatigue | Rule out causes like anaemia, hypothyroidism, electrolyte imbalance |
| Post COVID cardio-respiratory syndrome | Cough, low grade fever, shortness of breath, chest pain, | Sudden increase in dyspnoea can be due to tension pneumothorax, pulmonary embolism, coronary artery disease or heart failure in patients recovered from COVID-19 |
| Post COVID neuro-psychiatric syndrome | Headaches, anosmia, neurocognitive difficulties, insomnia, depression and other mental health conditions | In patients with acute onset neurological symptoms consider vasculitis, thrombosis or demyelination. Post COVID psychological issues have to be addressed properly. |
| Post COVID gastro-intestinal syndrome | Abdominal discomfort, diarrhea, constipation, vomiting, | GI symptoms can be a sequelae of the disease. Various drugs used during acute COVID, especially lopinavir/ritonavir produces GI symptoms |
| Post COVID hepato-biliary syndrome | Nausea, jaundice, deranged LFT | Drugs used in the treatment of COVID-19 like remdesivir, favipiravir, lopinavir/ritonavir and tocilizumab can cause hepatic impairment. |
| Post COVID musculo-skeletal syndrome | Muscle pains and weakness, arthralgia | May be due to disease, prolonged ICU care, neurological problems, myopathy or electrolyte imbalance. Usually subside during follow up. Inflammatory arthralgia has to be differentiated from other causes like RA, SLE |
| Post COVID thromboembolic syndrome | Depending upon the vascular territory of involvement breathlessness in PE, chest pain in CAD and limb weakness and neurological deficit in CVA | Early diagnosis and treatment is life saving. Follow the standard treatment protocol. |
| Post COVID multisystem inflammatory syndrome/post COVID autoimmune syndrome | Fever, gastrointestinal symptoms, rash, chest pain, palpitations | Elevated levels of markers of inflammation. |
| Post COVID genito-urinary symptoms | Proteinuria, haematuria, development of kidney injury | Endothelial dysfunction, coagulopathy, complement activation, direct effect of virus on kidney, sepsis and multi-organ dysfunction contribute to the development |
| Post COVID dermatological syndrome | Vesicular, maculopapular, urticarial, or chilblain-like lesions on the extremities (COVID toe) |